Pattern 6 – Web 2.0 Applicationshttps://nymphad.wordpress.com
Discussing Web 2.0 Applications
Tue, 20 Nov 2018 00:28:20 +0000 en
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngPattern 6 – Web 2.0 Applicationshttps://nymphad.wordpress.com
Pattern 6: Perpetual Betahttps://nymphad.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/pattern6/
https://nymphad.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/pattern6/#commentsSun, 25 Apr 2010 11:49:03 +0000http://nymphad.wordpress.com/?p=77“There’s no final version. Nothing is static, everything is changing. With every new iteration, small changes make you realize the creature is alive.” This is written by Alex Chitu, a blogger that writes about Google. His words are apposite to this weeks theme, Perpetual Beta. Perpetual Beta is about software or a system that stays in the beta development stage for a longer or indefinite period of time, its unfinished sofware. A lot of devices and software is connected to the internet, and that gives them an opportunity to change at a rapid speed. Unlike packaged software, like Microsoft Office, that can only change when a new package come out, a perpetual beta software can change several times a day if they want to. Instead of having to pay to get new services, the users become co-developers. Tim O’Reilly states:

“Users must be treated as co-developers, in a reflection of open source development practices (even if the software in question is unlikely to be released under an open source license.) The open source dictum, ‘release early and release often‘, in fact has morphed into an even more radical position, ‘the perpetual beta’, in which the product is developed in the open, with new features slipstreamed in on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. It’s no accident that services such as Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, and the like may be expected to bear a ‘Beta’ logo for years at a time.”

All in all it doesnt seem like the privacy issues and the beta label has frightened the users. Gmail has 176 million users monthly, and they have won a couple of awards. In 2005 they got second in PC World’s “100 Best Products of 2005”. So maybe the Perpetual Beta works?